Purple wisteria,
a red rhododendron
color a lush green world
in a thin afternoon rain.

A brown horse steps
over the far field
with the slow fluency
of a mind at peace.

Rain patters the new leaves.
Rain falls through some archaic memory
not your own. Someone stood here
in another century.

And will again.

Mike Dillon lives with his wife of 40-plus years in Indianola, Washington, a small town on Puget Sound northwest of Seattle. He is a retired community newspaper publisher who comes from a newspaper family. He walks, reads, writes, and in summers swims in the cold waters of Puget Sound.

they saw her in the forest
looking for what she had lost
between trees the bare pieces
of white and thin cloth
the more she walked
the less of her there was
her body was traced later
by a good local cop
they probably saw her
the birch pale that she was
she mixed in well with leaves
and the background noise

Katarzyna is a psychologist with an interest in psychoanalysis and writing. She lives, works and writes in London. Her poems are short and nearly always rhyme – this may be due to a fear of long prose ever since school.

Not knowing the difference
between carp and piranha
I was sure my life was over
when I tumbled into the water
and the fish surrounded me
mouths agape but dad’s arm
came down like an anaconda
and lifted me dripping to the bank
where I stood amazed my limbs
were still there minus one shoe
which fell off in the commotion
and dad was about to trudge in
to get it but I grabbed his arm
with the strength of an anaconda
because I still didn’t know the difference
between carp and piranha.

Ian Willey is a sociolinguist residing in the inland sea area of Japan. His poems have been published here and there and a few have received some recognition.

Like the sixty-first minute, or the twenty-fifth
hour,
this time will be recalled as the eleventh year of
the decade.
A leap across the breadth of a new dawn, an era of
legacy.
In six months we have grown so old; our children
cannot sleep,
and look how the light falls on the balcony, the
hospital, the street.

Marguerite is from Dublin, Ireland and is interested in exploring her native city and its surroundings in her poetry. Marguerite graduated from Dublin City University in 2020 with an M.A. in Creative Writing. She received a Special Mention for her submission to the Desmond O’Grady International Poetry Prize in 2020.

as i left
only the hallway had something to say
it echoed the steps
before they were muffled
by the floor rug
and by the door they were locked
away

Katarzyna is a psychologist with an interest in psychoanalysis and writing. She lives, works and writes in London. Her poems are short and nearly always rhyme – this may be due to a fear of long prose ever since school.

Cornmeal and cooking grease violently clash-
a one-time ritual now lodged in a failing hippocampal vault
which crackles through a growing divide,
materializing in your frying pan,
at least for today.

The scent rises;
a batter-bathed cyclone of collective unconscious
circulating upward through vents
like generations of mountaineers summoning me.

I attend this hallowed call,
demon stop to your holy ghost tent revival
in the kitchen that is also a living room

You said, “Hush Puppy!”
A thick Appalachian rasp
sending its reverb off the drywall
and through the feather reeds
that only you can see.

Below the native aroma,
I sat pinstriped in the dull light cast through vertical, linoleum blinds;
(You sat in the feather reeds)
and we ate fried dough.

Amanda Harris is writer and faculty member at Seton Hall University and Caldwell University. Raised by an Appalachian single father in a well-to-do Southern Californian beach community, Amanda is interested in capturing the complicated process of negotiating regional identities that are seemingly at odds. She lives outside of New York City with her husband, sons, and shih tzu.

They say one room in his house
was reserved for the mosquitoes
who were remarkably well-behaved
owing to the fact that the window
was kept open all night allowing
the mosquitoes to fly out and find
sustenance wherever they could
and come back at dawn to decorate
the walls in the thousands, bellies
plump with blood, and Mr. Baxter
would go in and walk among them
without causing a stir because they
knew and trusted him until the day
he cleaned the window and forgot
to open it and we were in homeroom
when the announcement was made.

Ian Willey is a sociolinguist residing in the inland sea area of Japan. His poems have been published here and there and a few have received some recognition.

They say the butterfly bears a remnant, a recall
of some undulating shunt-hugging
grasp of branch and leaf. Sea greenness
of forest coral folding over memory
of silk-spun labour. Unconsciousness
before metamorphosis; broken threads
release each peacock eye like
an opening of sunrise. The butterfly beats
his wings of powdered ashes; scatters
his kaleidoscope of loss.

Marguerite is from Dublin, Ireland and is interested in exploring her native city and its surroundings in her poetry. Marguerite graduated from Dublin City University in 2020 with an M.A. in Creative Writing. She received a Special Mention for her submission to the Desmond O’Grady International Poetry Prize in 2020.

the walls are white
and clean
well dusted.
on the counter
the plastic bowl
full of snacks
untouched;
everyone who lives here
is careful
to be worried about their weight
(I am sleeping with one of them currently –
this doesn’t bother me at all).

and there are three laptops
on the table by the sofa – one is old
and only used
to project films on the opposite wall
but the others
are well maintained,
paid for
by jobs
in the tech sector.
them
I am not allowed
to touch
(I break things).

the windowblinds
are spotted with moths
trapped
when the things were rolled up
and there is always
laundry being done.

how wonderful
to look outside
and see into everyone’s apartment.
and how terrible,
knowing
they can look up
and see me
looking in.

DS Maolalai has been called “prolific”, though he refers to himself as “incontinent” His poetry has been released in two collections, “Love is Breaking Plates in the Garden” (Encircle Press, 2016) and “Sad Havoc Among the Birds” (Turas Press, 2019). He has been nominated four times for Best of the Net and three times for the Pushcart Prize.